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Homosexuality

OK, you are are probably saying, “What is this guy talking about”, so let me explain. In May of this year (2015), a deputy from Lee County in FL decided to post a video of a black man and attached the comment, “Can someone please tell me what the [expletive] this monkey is saying?” He also said, “Get a real life [expletive] monkey.” This deputy thinks that black people are monkeys. He would like to dehumanize black people in an attempt to justify his racism, justify the things he has done as a police officer.

But let’s not stop there, lets rewind back generations to Frederick Douglass. Mr. Douglass painted a picture of how slaves were dehumanized. Douglass says that from the time a slave entered the world, the dehumanizing began. They were immediately separated from their mother, an attempt to break the bond between mother and child (Douglass). He goes on to say that slaves were not told their birthday or age, this was a way the slave master enforced the slaves’ status as property. Rape, torture, forced breeding, being called a sub-species of human were all ways that slaves were dehumanized. Douglass says the worst way was probably lack of access to education. All these tactics had one purpose in mind; so that the rest of the general population would see slaves as animals, unworthy of human rights, justice, opportunity or freedom. And this is still repeated today, just look at the Florida deputy, calling a black man a monkey.

So why do I say that black people have a problem? Well here it is. Blacks are still an oppressed minority, and this has been evident in the US with the on-going police brutality, high incarceration rates, white-supremacist terrorist attacks and economic & social inequality. Some black people are fighting hard against this with the #blacklivematter campaign. However, there is one thing that is getting in their way. It is this general attitude to continue to bash other oppressed minorities, in particular the LGBT community. The picture above, which I will assume was created by DL Hughley or a fan (#teamDL tag on picture), and shared by his Facebook page is one example of blacks actually dehumanizing another human being. One may say that, no this picture is just showing the way the media is celebrating Caitlyn, while bashing Serena and it is based on race. I will argue here that this picture has a specific aim, because the person who created it knows that the emotions of blacks (specifically religious blacks) are high on the coat-tail of the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage. It was created to make a distinct division, and to highlight the need to foster civil-rights “competition” and self-segregate the black community into its own world. If this picture was just to highlight race and white-supremacy, why not create this picture (below), showing Samantha Stosur, another muscular tennis player, which would make for a better comparison. Two female tennis players, both muscular and successful, but one happens to be black and one happens to be white. The motives of the original DL Hughley photo become clear.

Some may also argue that the first picture is not dehumanizing Caitlyn. Well, let me show you some of the comments from DL Hughley’s Facebook page.

Ok….check this. Do Not Ever put Serena next to that again. (Calling Caitlyn a that says she is not a human, unworthy of respect)

Serena lookin like a Queen.. And Jenner lookin like the BEAST (Didn’t slave masters and the white population call slaves animals? And today, racist continue to call us monkeys)

Serena is a woman made from God. Bruce is man made. (Caitlyn is “fake”)

Jenner looks like a genetically made freakazoid!!! (Caitlyn is a “science experiment”)

So back to the black people’s problem. In April of this year LGBT groups rallied around black civil rights groups to denounce police brutality. They understood that injustice is injustice and a unified front against it is one way to tackle the issue. What do black people do? Continue to tear LGBT people down, to try to segregate themselves and make civil rights or respect a competition, and post memes like this one. Blacks try to dehumanize Caitlyn, in an attempt to show that their plight is more valid or more real, conveniently forgetting that their ancestors were also dehumanized (albeit on a much larger and more harsh scale). Also, this picture is tearing a human down, to show that tearing another human down is wrong. The hypocrisy is deafening.

Now, I also understand that transgender people are hard to comprehend to some. I even struggle with it, but I understand that I may never fully understand, because I do not walk in the transgender’s shoes. However, not understanding something is no excuse. We have access to so much information these days. To go back to Douglass he believed the greatest aspect of dehumanization in slavery…was not giving slaves the resources to develop literacy or intelligence. Are black people dehumanizing themselves when they refuse to get educated with so much information out there?

I leave you with this. How can people take the “new” black civil and human rights movement seriously, when blacks continue to bash and dehumanize other human beings? Why is it that blacks cannot work with other disenfranchised groups to create a larger movement against all the world’s injustice (The LGBT groups rallied for the black cause, even while being called abominations, faggots, dykes, man-bitches and the destroyers of civilizations). When will black people finally wake up to reality and realize that they will never progress if they keep pushing everyone away?

There is a common misconception among some people of African decent. It is that homosexuality and transgender behaviour is a “white man’s” idea, disease or burden. People like to spread that the white man came up with it (usually in France) and is now spreading it throughout the world and corrupting the poor black man. Where does this idea come from and why is it not true?

In an article written by Colin Steward entitled, “21 Varieties of traditional African homosexuality”, Steward gives us an insight of what was going on in the pre-colonial times in Africa. He states, “Throughout Africa’s history, homosexuality has been a ‘consistent and logical feature of African societies and belief systems.” Some of the examples that he has given are, “explicit” bushman paintings, which depict same-sex sexual activity, the Ganga-Ya-Chibanda (priest from the Congo) who routinely crossed-dressed and referred to as “grandmother. Another example is in 1606 it was documented that men in southern Africa behaved “womanly” and were ashamed to call themselves men. One last example was practice of female-female marriages amongst the Nandi and other various tribes.

Here are some other pieces of history of homosexuality:

In East Asia, same-sex love has been referred to since the earliest recorded history.

Homosexuality in China, known as the pleasures of the bitten peach, the cut sleeve, or the southern custom, has been recorded since approximately 600 BCE.

Homosexuality in Japan, variously known as shudo or nanshoku, has been documented for over one thousand years and had some connections to the Buddhist monastic life and the samurai tradition.

The Laws of Manu, the foundational work of Hindu law, mentions a “third sex”, members of which may engage in nontraditional gender expression and homosexual activities.

When English and French-Canadian fur trappers first grew acquainted with the cultures of the Native Americans among whom they found themselves, they were surprised to find that there were significant numbers of men dressed as women among the tribes of the region.

The list goes on…and not one of these cultures are “white people.”

Where does this notion come from? Is it because of black people’s adherence to religion, more so then their white counterpart? Or is it because Muhammad Ali, in 1969, stated that white people where the cause of homosexuality and that idea stuck with black people?

Where ever this came from, if one looks at the facts, and ignores the rhetoric, one would see that homosexuality is present throughout history, and throughout cultures.

In an article entitled, Island misses out on UK’s gay marriage move, it is stated that “Premier Michael Dunkley said in 2012 that he did not support [same-sex marriage] because ‘marriage to me is a union between a man and a woman’.”

Since when did Michael Dunkley become God? I didn’t get the memo. How is it that he can decide on all Bermudians civil rights, based on his opinion? Bermuda, so it seems, has been held hostage by the churches since the birth of our country. One cannot deny that everyone has a right to worship how they feel, but why is it that the religious leaders and organizations in Bermuda have so much influence politically and socially, and get to dictate their beliefs to everyone else? When will Bermuda become a secular nation?

Now most people are not sure what secularism is. The various religious entities in Bermuda and around the world portray scenes of immoral debauchery, perversion, chaos and every other way to slander this idea that they can find. Secularism, however, has a much more noble purpose. If you go to Wikipedia, you will find that the real purpose of secularism is the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries. That’s it. No sinister plot, no plan to turn society upside down. It is to protect everyone so that all will be equal before the law. I would even venture to say that keeping dogma and religious tradition out of the law is a human right. No one should be forced by legislation to be coerced into following someone else’s religious opinion. And when those opinions are found in existing laws, it is the responsibility of our legislators to move our society to a more equal plane.

On the converse, one would wonder if the opposite is better. Well, we have many shining examples of theocracies around the world. Many countries in the Middle East use Sharia Law. According to James Arlandson of American Thinker, Sharia Law can bring out the most violent traits of humanity. Based on a holy book, when someone commits an “offence” they can be injured or murdered. Is this where we want to go in Bermuda? I think not.

So when the Premier and Leader of the country, Michael Dunkley states that his opinion is that marriage is between a man and a woman, and when the Opposition leader, Marc Bean, can feel comfortable stating that same-sex marriage will turn civilization upside down and upon its head, it is time for us to tell our political leaders that their religion has no business being forced upon people who may not share those same beliefs, through law. Bermuda needs secularism.